ABSTRACT
One finds in ethical philosophy two opposed tendencies. Some moralists are mainly concerned with values and ideals; others with judgments that can be applied to concrete situations in human life. It is a considerable limitation on the development of sociological theory in this field that there exists no adequate and generally accepted classification of basic types of values and norms. In the first place, the present distinction invites some comparison with other discriminations which have been made in social theory, and in particular with Weber’s distinction, in his typology of action, between Wertrationalitat and Zweckrationalitat.” In this chapter, the authors discuss some of the basic components of a moral code. These components may be divided into the elements of a moral code and the relations which pertain between these elements. With regard to the elements of a moral code, they distinguished primarily between the processes of evaluation and prescription.
